I struggle finding people that I want to follow as well. Agreed, the new section is a waste of time, and even the hot section requires a lot of filtering. I don't have much time on steemit, so when I do I don't want to waste it browsing hopelessly. I have a lot on my feed I need to winnow down. Maybe I'm a snob, or this just isn't my style? Idk. I'm going to keep looking though :)
Well if you are a snob, then I'm also, though that probably doesn't surprise anyone... I am on Steemit a lot but because my main focus is in creating content, I don't have time to use hours and hours to find something of interest, if I can find it elsewhere much easier. I think that is the problem here, there is good content, but ain't nobody got time to find it!